Drupal Guide. Preparations
The first and the most important things you need to start your website is web hosting and domain name.
- Hosting is an offer that allows you to run your website on the internet. In a few words it’s a place for your website files on a computer permanently connected to the internet (server).
- Domain name is a name for your future website like info.template-help.com, google.com etc.
There is a huge amount of domain and hosting offers over the internet from different hosting companies. Unfortunately the web hosting market has various fraud offers that can harm your business. We recommend you to be careful in choosing a hosting provider and gather as much information as possible before ordering.
Before you can start setting up your Drupal website please make sure they you and your hosting server is fully prepared for Drupal.
1. Hosting requirements
Open the Drupal official website at drupal.org and check the Drupal system requirements. These are the list of features and requirements that your hosting server should fit. We recommend you to contact your hosting provider to learn if you can host Drupal on their hosting server
2. Software requirements
If your template would be customized by the third party developer or you are willing to order the template installation from templatetuning.com you can skip this step
Otherwise, if you are willing to customize the template yourself please make sure you have all required programs installed on your computer. You can check the template preview page to see the template software requirements. Usually you need the following programs to edit the template:
The first application you need is a archive manager, the software that can extract the files from the password protected template package.
- If you are on MAC you can use StuffitExpander software.
- If you are on Windows you can use WinZip software.
Both archive managers have free trial versions available for download so you can use them. We highly recommend using the required extracting programs to avoid possible issues with the extracted files.
- Adobe Photoshop – to edit images
- Adobe Dreamweaver – to edit CSS styles, HTML and PHP files, JavaScript files etc
- Adobe Flash – in case your template has flash animation and you want to edit it
Note that the above Adobe applications are required for the template customization, in other words you need them if you want to change the template design, layout and functionality. If you are fine with the template and want only to install it and change content you don’t need any specific software.
You may also need the FTP manager to upload the files to your hosting server (in case your hosting control panel doesn’t have any). You can use any FTP manager like FileZilla, CuteFTP, TotalCommander etc
Drupal Guide. Downloading
When you are done with the preparations you can start downloading the Drupal engine and Drupal template files to your computer
1. Download correct Drupal engine version
At the template preview page, in the requirements section you can see the required Drupal version. Please make sure you are downloading the correct one.
The Drupal engine could be download from the official website at drupal.org Download Drupal. In case you need more recent releases you can click the Other Releases link.
There are two download options available: you can download Drupal engine as ZIP file and .TAR.GZ file. We recommend you to download in ZIP format.
2. Download Drupal template
After the template purchase you got an e-mail with the link to the purchase details page. There you can see your order details and download the template using the Download button.
The template is provided as a ZIP file. Download it to your computer and save it.
Drupal Guide. Extracting files
When you are done with the downloading you need to extract the files from the engine and template packages
To extract the files from the Drupal engine ZIP package you can use any archive manager that can handle ZIP archives.
As for the template ZIP package, the situation is a bit different. The template package contains the password protected sources_XXXX.zip file. It countains the template source files and could be extracted only WinZip or StuffitExpander.
The following tutorials will show you how to extract files on Windows(WinZip) and MAC(StuffitExpander):
Drupal Guide. Uploading files
Upload Drupal engine files
After extracting the files you need to upload the Drupal engine files and folders to your hosting server. The extracted Drupal engine files looks as follows:
- includes
- misc
- modules
- profiles
- scripts
- sites
- themes
- authorize.php
- cron.php
- index.php
- install.php
- update.php
- xmlrpc.php
- …other files
All these files and folders should be uploaded to your hosting server.
If your hosting control panel has the built-in FTP manager that is able to extract files directly on the server you can upload the engine package as a single ZIP file and then extract it to the necessary folder.
The engine files should be uploaded to the PUBLIC_HTML or WWW directory on your server.
If you don’t see PUBLIC_HTML or WWW directories on your hosting server please contact your hosting and specify where to upload the website files
Uploading Drupal template files
To upload the Drupal template correctly please follow a few easy steps below:
- Open the template folder with the extracted template files;
- Upload the sites folder to the Drupal root directory (directory with all Drupal files and folders);
When all files are uploaded the template would be available from the Drupal admin panel at the Appearance page.
Drupal Guide. Engine installation
When you are done uploading all template and engine files to your hosting server you can start the installation procedure.
Please decide if you want to instal the template sample data (make the template appear as at the preview page). If you want to install the sample data please refer to the next step and check if the sample data should be installed before or after the engine installation.
Drupal Guide. Template installation
When you are done uploading the engine files you can install the Drupal template.
Before you proceed please check the next guide step regarding the sample data installation.
If you want to install the template sample data and you have a Drupal template with the sample profile please skip this step and perform the Sample data installation.
If you have a template with SQL sample data and you want to install the sample data – you can skip this step and use the tutorials fro mthe Sample data installation step of this guide.
If you are not interested in the sample data and want just to install the template please use the following tutorials:
Drupal Guide. Sample data installation
To make your template appear as at the preview or live demo page you need to install the template sample data. Sample data contains the website settings, sample posts, pages, menus, images etc. It is useful when you want to see the template functionality or the examples of the pages design and layout.
Installing template sample data will remove your existing website content if you have any We do not recommend to install the template sample data over your existing website. Use it only with the clear Drupal installation.
Depending on your template there are 2 options of the sample data installation. To check which one to use please view the template package files structure.
Installing sample data using SQL file
Files structure:
- screenshots
- theme###
- sources
- clipart_library
- modules
- psd
- theme###.sql
The template data SQL file should be installed after the Drupal engine installation. Please check the following video tutorial on how to install the sample data using SQL file:
Installing sample data using Drupal profile
Files structure:
- screenshots
- theme###
- sources
- clipart_library
- demo_profile
- psd
- system.php
The Drupal demo profile should be installed before the Drupal engine installation. It’s won’t work otherwise.
Please check the following detailed tutorial on how to install the Drupal demo profile:
Now the sample data option will appear during the Drupal engine installation.